Ragtag
by poppins8
Summary: A young woman bargains with a bounty hunter. A child with untold powers is feared by the wizarding world. Snape finds a family forged by survival. A story about motherhood, and people who are rejected by blood, body, society and magic. Plot is OC driven. AU, but relatively canon. There are graphic depictions and mature themes; including abuse. SS/OC.
1. Marie

Chapter 1

o-O-o

When she was five she woke up in the backseat of a Ford Sierra, in a car park outside of a petrol station and a second-rate nightclub. Her fingers were numb and her breath puffed into frosted air. The rough spots on the car seat from old, spilled liquor grazed her skin like bristled fur, suddenly puffing into rime. She was used to waking up in strange places, by herself, and so she felt detached curiosity at the sudden fear that gripped her limbs. She hardly knew what to think when the detachment dissipated and the fear marbled like cooling liquid in her blood, hammering icy shards into her heart. She couldn't breathe, and then suddenly began inhaling in panicky gasps as her small chest fluttered like a caught rabbit.

Her eyes registered nothing, just her scared reflection in the mirror, a child enclosed in a plastic casket. But her body was telling her to run. There was something, _something,_ in the car with her, an empty gaze casting tendrils of interest along her body.

The phrase that entered her mind was as foreign as the dread she was feeling.

 _Mummy_. I need my mummy.

Liz popped the lock up and flew out the door, her footprints skirting the dusted snow on the asphalt. She ran a few steps then stopped, her hammering heart echoing the tantric beat from the building across the street. Looking back at the hunk of grey car, its open door like a gaping black yawn, she watched in horror as a thin line orbited wisps alongside her footprints. It threaded towards her, slowly but purposefully, caressing and splitting the snow with its unseen shadow.

She sprinted across the street and ducked through the door of the building, her little arms trying to slip through the crowd of smokers loitering in the entry, and yanked open another door that led to the club floor. Heat cloaked her in a sweltering blow; the crowd of sweat-slicked people writhing like lake-floor reeds did little to assuage her fear, but rather amplified the reaching danger she felt closing in on her. A man's hand reached down to clasp her shoulder, probably to question her presence, but she shrugged him off. In her limited experience she already understood that glassy-eyed drunkards did her more harm than good.

Mum.

Her mother did not look like a mother in most circumstances, but her parenthood status was utterly incongruous in the snow globe-like enchantment of the reeking warehouse. Barely a woman, and yet, utterly a woman, she danced in her most elemental form, her beautiful face dipping to the ground then rising again, gaspingly. It would be later that Liz would analyse the scene, and see what was wrong with the picture. How her mum commanded the room; how the dancers glazed over in both feet and eyes, spellbound. How she lazily twirled a stick between her fingers, _the stick,_ the one that no one was allowed to touch. How there was no ceiling, but a starlit galaxy that swirled to the motions of her hands, casting ambient blues and purples onto her slack face.

Liz tugged at her mother's empty hand, trying to wake up her vacant, distant eyes. The galaxy sky flickered, dimming with her lapsing concentration, and her long lashes swept from her high cheekbones, which paled from smooth to gaunt as the light changed to a tri-coloured pallor from the cheap floor lights.

" _Mummy,"_ Liz pleaded, seeing her mother's faint awareness and pointing rather blindly in the direction of the door.

Her mother stopped stock-still, her eyes widening towards the ceiling. Liz followed her gaze, only seeing water-damaged tiles and loosely-hung foil lights; it all seemed rather jaundiced after the clear glow of the galaxy.

"Dementors", mum hissed, slipping the stick into her waistband and yanking Liz to her side. Mum never stooped when holding her, just jerked her child upwards by the arm while the girl ran on tiptoes. Liz felt such happy relief that mummy, at least, saw the danger.

They burst out the emergency exit and into the softly snowing night. Her mother was just as afraid as she was, that much was clear, as her hands shook at the ignition. The little engine cranked as they fled through the coiling streets of Gateshead, the rushing snow concaving around the windscreen like pinpricks of collapsing stars.

Mum swerved the car behind a large brick building, tunnelling down a pitch-black lane and parked behind a skip bin. White-knuckling the broken safety-belt, Liz recognized the building as Tony's place. Having regained her bearings, she jumped out the car and into the side entrance, mum hot on her heels. There were no sounds. No traffic. No rustling litter. No wind. Just the wheezy gasps of petrified girls. Having scrambled up the steps, mum fumbled at the lock of her boyfriend's flat, the tension mounting at the sound of footsteps knocking up the wooden stairs behind them. Before Liz slipped into the jerked-open door, her stomach leapt into her throat as she caught a glimpse of long brown robes swishing around the corner.

Her mum slammed the door and lifted her stick from her waistband, but right as she pointed it to the bolt the door swung open, knocking Liz on the nose as she pressed flat to the wall.

"No!" Mum's voice was strangled, desperate.

"Marie Milne." The voice was deep, and oddly dispassionate considering the level of terror curdling in the hallway.

Mum tried again to shut the door, but her body was immediately yanked out of the door. Her hands gripped the door jamb.

"It wasn't me. I swear it." And then, "I'm pissed out of my mind, I didn't mean to! I'm not in my right state… _gerroff!_ "

Liz clutched the doorknob with sweaty palms and held it to her chest.

"Mrs. Milne."

"Do not _call_ me that," she snarled. "I never took the bastards name."

Undeterred, the voice droned on. "This is your third confirmed breach of your probation in regards to magical protocol. As specified in the terms of your probation, your wand is traced to the Ministry. We are here to escort you to the Wizengamot for an immediate hearing."

"This is bollocks!" Mum shrieked. "You have no right!"

Liz spared a wide-eyed glance in the crack of the door, watching her mum's fingers slip from the jamb as she cursed and shouted, her voice hiccupping in unison to the tugging of her body, before a _crack_ sounded out and her cries were cut short and left behind dead silence.

The instant hush tore any remaining breath from the girl's lungs. She stood frozen, in the dark, craning for any noise and any remnant of mum. Her heart clenched as she sensed a breath touch her between the door and the jamb, and her jaw dropped in silent petrification as she felt the floorboards bend with the weight of a man. Her hands clutched the knob in prayer stance.

She couldn't see the man, but she felt him moving around in the flat. Opening doors and looking into rooms. He walked back to the doorway, an inch from Liz, and stopped again. He breathed deeply, and the fabric of his clothes rustled. The girl saw black dread creep around her vision and grip her heart, before flooding her body with molten blood. She remembered to let go of the knob the very second the figure swung it shut. She stayed in the spot by the wall, gasping, for hours until Tony showed up from his night shift. There was little she could say to explain her appearance.

After waiting a week for his girlfriend to show up and collect her kid, he had his sister drive the girl down from Gateshead to London and into the care of her birth father, Doug Milne. The prodigal bastard husband.

As an adult, Liz would come to understand that this event was hardly serious. Retrospectively, not even that scary. She would come to fear much more grave dangers, in her later life. She would undergo worse traumas.

But this was the first. And the first is the one that haunts.

Her first broken bone, her first betrayal, the first time she was sexually penetrated, all these _firsts_ would forever remain palpable to her. While the memories of the pains would be visceral and real, she had the cognitive capacity to gloss over the acuteness of the sharpness and the stabs.

The memory of fleeing through Gateshead, however, stuck like shrapnel. She would always feel the tangible texture of that night; the cold fabric of the Sierra, her mother's anguished pleas, the feel of every stuttered heartbeat galvanizing her chest. To be informed of such abject _terror_ and abandonment at that age would impress not only all her future decisions and actions, but her personality as well. She was a person who knew what it was to be left alone. Not simply _to be_ alone. But to be _left_ alone.

o-O-o

Marie had lived.

She had not been carted off by Satanists or abducted by aliens or any of the gory scenarios her daughter had envisioned. She was merely drunk, stupid, and highly reactionary. The only risk to Liz had she been seen was to have her memory forcefully obliviated, which, all things considered, would likely have been for the best.

Liz would learn this later.

Doug had taken one bloodshot glance at his sullen child the day she landed at his doorstep, looked to the ceiling and proclaimed all manners of profanities at his god. But he was hardly one to turn his nose up at the support benefits her presence would bring. And so Liz learned what it was to be used. He immediately saw the light and applied with a family bid for council housing. He trotted her out to the park to woo single mothers into taking a second glance at an otherwise unacceptably unhealthy man. When she was a little older he'd get her to stand outside the liquor store and sweetly ask dodgy-looking customers for a favour. He left her in the company of his boss, after one too many shifts skivvying off. And then the landlord. And then the loans-man.

Her father was a brute, and an alcoholic, but in his quieter moments she caught glimpses of what drew the attentions and unwittingly ensnared the womb of a then-teenaged Marie. He had been but a boy, once. It was such a mystery as to how something so pure could be so corrupted. His hardships in life had so deprived him of personhood that he was left depraved; a concept she came to learn as being something as resolute and lasting as the stones in the street.

No one could say where exactly Liz learned her humanity. Nobody, herself included, was paying close attention to her life. She was not Doug. She was not Marie. She was not the result of them, and their choices. Amid all the awful people that circled the miserable vortex of her childhood, there also existed the good.

Sami the sweetheart clerk at Botterils. The elderly Chinese woman who'd sometimes mind her and subsequently feed her until her belly burst. The Berry's, a loving family of ten living in a two-bedroom council house down the road and who were protective to the point of fanaticism. A girlfriend of Doug's who had left her a second-hand mattress, uncomfortable that she got to sleep on a bed while the child had the settee.

Liz had friends. And they sustained her.

o-O-o

Memories of magic stayed in her mind in unimportant ways; washed away in recollections of bigger events, or affixed to a random sense as banal as the smell of cough-syrup. She had partly grown up with it, and while she knew it was something that existed, it was not a concept she was capable of looking at head on.

It wasn't until Marie came back that she really viewed magic as the oddity it was.

Liz was eight years old, walking home from primary, and slowed wonderingly at the sight of the beautiful young woman leaning against the brick fence. She identified the thrum in the air before she recognized her mum. Marie's magic had a steady strumming sensation, like a plucked guitar string with the sound long faded.

Three years she thought this woman dead. Her fingers anxiously twisted the straps of her rucksack and she began to cry.

Mum.

Marie offered a quirk of a smile, amused. The familiarity of the gesture struck Liz to her core, and her sobbing pitched into a keen as she howled _mum… mum... mum._ The only words she was capable of.

The woman winced, then sighed as she stubbed her fag. "Quit your squealing Liz. It's good to see you. You're big now, yeah? Where's your dad at?"

It would annoy Liz, later, that the memory of the day her mother returned was as patchy and muddled as most other prosaic childhood memories. She could vaguely recall how Doug's absence brought a genuine smile to Marie's face, and how she followed at Marie's heels as the woman scoped the layout of the council house. She could see herself rashly swiping the tears from her cheeks, holding in the wash of snot, trying to appear mature for her mother.

 _Can you stay?_

 _I'm staying at a friend's house, love._

 _Can I come with you?_

 _No._

Marie was terse, distracted.

 _Where have you been? Mam, where were you? What happened to you?_

 _Prison._

 _At Holloway?_ The only prison Liz knew of – Doug had female friends incarcerated there.

 _It wasn't that kind of prison, Liz. Give me a hand 'ere._

Liz remembering tripping over herself in her haste to help her mother carry the telly to the door. Then they loaded the guitar, the portable radio, expensive speakers Doug had nicked the day before. She knew on some level what they were doing, what Marie was planning, and felt some anxiety as she knew Doug was going to go mental. But she would've robbed a bank if it meant Marie's regard.

Eventually there were men in the house, friends of Marie, and Liz felt her heart pounding as the afternoon began to close. While Marie rummaged through the drawers looking for spare change, she tentatively, _so_ tenuously, gripped her mother's sides in a cautious hug. Marie tolerated it, patting her hands distractedly. But then, as the kitchen emptied, Marie stood up straight.

She looked at Liz shrewdly, glanced out the door and then pulled the stick, _the_ stick, out from under her sweater.

 _Do you remember, Liz?_

She had nodded, the memories of old lessons vaguely evoked.

 _Try it again. I want to see. Give it a flick. C'mon, give it a go._

Nothing.

 _Try this. Look at the mug, focus your mind on it. Wingardium Leviosa. Say it right, love. Wingardium Leviosa._

Liz could recall the surge of Marie's energy, thrumming with impotent want, _wanting_ to touch that mug. She also recalled, in perfect detail, how her stomach wilted at the contempt and disdain in mother's eyes, as the signature of Liz' own strum never revealed itself.

 _It's what you get for shagging muggles, I suppose._

 _A squib,_ Marie had said.

A squib, Liz would remember all her life. Squib. The word meant nothing, yet everything, to her.

At the door, she begged her mother to take her along. Trying to convey wordlessly to her the kind of life she was living, in the manner that women understood in the very marrow of their sex. _Save me. Please. Please._

Marie shrugged the weeping girl off, but mindful of her mates in the car, gave her an obligatory but cursory peck.

"Give us a kiss, then. I'll come again, yeah? We'll step out for a bite. I promise."

One of the men called out. "Christ Marie, she's yer spittin' image."

Her mum looked back at Liz, truly looked at her well and proper. Her beautiful, pained face scanned the girl's features, warily, as though realizing for the first time that this truly was _her_ girl.

She looked sad. An uncanny sadness, not the usual kind. She met her child's eyes.

"I'd have loved you, you know." A shadow fell over her eyes. "Ta, darling."

And in the infuriating tendency of childhood memories, all Liz could still see was the back of a young woman striding across the narrow street, hands shoved into her pocket, and that was all that was left of Marie.

o-O-o

Authors note:

 _This won't be a long story, I promise. Or a particularly complex one. It was going to be otherwise, as indicated by the lengthy backstory of the OC character, but the other chapters are going to be much more to the point, as I simply don't have the time to invest in a byzantine original plot. I don't quite know why I wanted to write this, as the descriptions of Snape as written by JK Rowling doesn't particularly inspire heart palpitations, (for me at least), and really my OTP interest is Remus/Tonks. But I read one Snape fic, which was so bloody well written, that led me to another fic, and then to another, and after a solid month reading some of the best fanfics I've ever read, I realized I quite like Snape. Perhaps not for his looks or his vindictiveness, but for his actions. He's quite the tragic hero._

 _Long story short, I think Snape deserves some love._

 _Full disclaimer: It's been awhile since I've done fanfic – plot points are totally predictable, dare I say unoriginal, and as with many OC characters, we may accidentally fall into Mary Sue territory. Such is life. Well, my life, at any rate. Let's have fun anyway!_


	2. Martha

Chapter 2

o-O-o

"No more of that ginger lemon tosh from last night?" Liz winked at the child as she poured the hot water.

The little girl just shook her head, studiously staring at the faint grey lines mosaicked on her white mug.

Liz quirked a smile. "Well. You picked a good one. Chamomile is a special kind of tea, you know; it'll put your mind to rest, and ease your stomach if it's upset." She tilted her head thoughtfully and patted the order book sticking from her apron pocket. "Shall I put out another cup, maybe for your mum or dad?"

As snooping goes, it was hardly subtle. The girl tersely shook her head, the skin of her knuckles paling as she clenched the corner of the green Formica table. Liz backed off.

"Well then, I'll check on you in a bit, yeah?"

She simply transferred her attention to the window.

Liz weaved through the chairs and shared a loaded look with Beatriz, who was leaning against the gleaming counter with her cheek collapsed into a hand and staring at the girl with blatant interest. Her co-worker shook her head as Liz slumped against the counter and mimicked the same posture. They had watched the child long enough to know that she would never look up to catch them gawking at her. Her attention was aimed solely at the table, the window, and the door.

"Count down for another thirty cups," Beatriz murmured.

"It must be a new tea-a-day thing. She cleaned us out of Earl Grey on Monday."

"Dunno how her bladder ain't screaming."

Beatriz slack wonderment quickly shifted to amusement as the girl tilted the sugar dispenser towards her spoon. "Ah, here we go."

She had ignored the teaspoon for the large tablespoon, yet only allowed precisely half of the spoon to hold the sugar, extracting the stray grains with a moistened fingertip and siphoned off the excess. She held a careful palm under the spoon as she led it to its destination, peering closely as the tea lapped the grains. Then, setting the mug aside, she unfolded three paper napkins and laid it on the table, pressing the seams tightly. A fourth napkin was gently placed on her lap.

Liz and Beatriz giggled into their hands, charmed by the meticulous idiosyncrasies of her routine. Their smiles turned goofy as she scooped up any remaining sugar grains and attempted to gently blow them back in the tiny hatch of the dispenser. When prepared, she rested an arm on the table, looked out the window and sipped her tea like an old woman content to people-watch.

"Oh, bless her," Beatriz snorted, though Liz just shook her head.

"If we don't learn anything by tonight, we'll call the police."

If the restaurant had been in another district, they would have contacted the authorities much earlier. But being girls from the neighbourhood themselves, they understood better than most the law of the land, so to speak.

The quarter was both working class and welfare class, the resident families often blue-collar, unemployed or single parents working multiple jobs. Child-minding was usually a needless expense in a community where people watched out for one another. It wasn't unusual to see children coming into the café and sitting by themselves, picking at chips until curfew demanded their presence at home. And unless one of them was sporting a black eye or looked in any way worse for wear, the unwritten code was to let sleeping dogs lie. The alternative was almost always worse.

Beatriz nodded in agreement. "It's one thing to put your child out of doors to keep them out of your hair, but it's another thing entirely when they're special needs. And she's here from open to close! It's not right."

"I reckon she leaves about quarter to ten. Slippery little creature." Liz and Beatriz had already made plans to find out where the child lived, in order to gauge her home-life situation, but every time they had prepared to follow her, they would look up only to see an empty chair and coins on the table.

"Right." Beatriz slapped a hand on the table. "Tonight, the first one who sees her leave will drop everything and go after her, while the other covers and remembers to pick up our coats. We'll meet back at your flat."

"Deal."

It wasn't simply the child's welfare that concerned Liz, though it bothered her a great deal more than she let on.

Magic, as she dimly remembered calling it as a child, was not a foreign element since her mother's disappearance so long ago. Liz felt other people's magical signatures all the time, some plucking, some grating, but all in all a low reverberation that held as much personality as its owner's face. It pained her at first, reminding her of Marie, and there were too many awkward conversations which indicated that she was the only one that could spot these people. Eventually, however, that particular sense would tune out like white noise. The occurrences were akin to spotting a severely injured person, or a set of identical twins; the uncommonness might be cause for a pause, but one moves on.

The previous Friday, as Liz was elbow deep in the sink covering dishwashing duties, she felt a great gust of magical energy surge at her back, like a porch screen blown open by the wind. She had walked out in the dining area trance-like, soap suds sluicing down her arms, and stared in disbelief as a child with almond-shaped eyes skittishly made her way to the table by the wall.

Liz had never felt a magical presence like the one emitted by the small girl with garishly cropped hair. There wasn't much that she knew about magic, but she felt certain that it was unusual to be possessed by one so young. She had watched the child all day, and then again on her next shift, and the next, trying to figure her out. The level of magic was significant, Liz was sure, but far be it for her to try to explain why. The magic felt palpably thunderous, tectonic; Marie's magic felt like a skipped pebble in comparison.

It was difficult to gauge her age. Her stature was small, smaller than her sister, but her lack of conversation and the facial distinctions from her obvious Down Syndrome made it impossible to tell for sure. Liz guessed somewhere between 6 and 8.

She couldn't tell Beatriz about the magic, for obvious reasons. Good friends were hard to come by, and as it happens, serious comments about magic had a tendency towards spoiling easy camaraderie. Fortunately, they were in agreement over their mutual disapproval for a special needs child to be alone for all hours of the day, unaccompanied.

The lunch rush eventually broke them apart, and Liz quietly fell into the lull of automatic orders, softly clattering of utensils, and the bright laughter of friends and colleagues enjoying a cuppa. Liz liked the routine of the restaurant and its customers; the sameness of things. She wiped crumbs off the tables, mopped slush from the doorway, and coffee poured and sputtered continuously, but she didn't take her mind off of the girl. The whole situation made her anxious.

The child looked out the window, as usual, watching old men clutching their collars against wet flakes of January snow; the busy world orbiting around her as though held apart by a radial wire.

When things quieted down, Liz prepared a large plate of chips from the kitchen and then plopped herself down beside the girl, exuding the best flippancy she could muster.

"Don't mind if I share your table, love? You'd be doing me a favour."

The child looked sincerely afraid. Liz's heart clenched, but she leaned in conspiratorially. "It's my break, you see, and sometimes when the customers see the waitress sitting by herself, they think it's okay to ask for another cuppa or put in an order. And I'm done in. I couldn't serve one more customer without falling _flat_ on my face.

Now that I have company," she continued brightly, resolutely, "They'll leave me alone and I'll finally get some peace and quiet." She tapped her temple, "Old trick of the trade, that."

Nothing. The girl gave an agitated glance out the window, then squeaked as Liz swung her feet off the ground and held them aloft. Liz stared dejectedly at them.

"Look at these feet. Now, it's hard to tell seeing as I'm wearing these ugly loafers, but these are the sorriest-looking feet in all of Britain. And its colonies. And its embassies. These feet are _world-weary._ And the poor toes have been stubbing corners and chairs all day. If these feet had a face I'd call them Mr. and Mrs. Magoo."

Liz was disappointed to receive only a bewildered stare; the Magoo joke would have her little sister Penny in stitches. She swung her feet back to the ground and looked beseechingly at the girl.

"If I serve one more plate my poor little feet are going to detach themselves from my ankles, say _'it's been a pleasure, ta very much, but we have needs too'_ and go on strike. As the union representative for Mr. and Mrs. Magoo, I am here to formally ask for your assistance in saving them. May I please sit here, in your company?"

Okay, the union joke was pushing it, but Liz was heartened by the reluctantly permitting nod.

"Excellent!" She beamed at the child. "I've come bearing gifts. One fizzy drink, and chips to share."

The girl blinked at the proffered food.

"Go on, then." Liz nudged the plate closer. A hesitant hand reached out for the Vimto, stubby nails picking at the aluminium.

She watched her struggle for a moment, flummoxed at the notion of a child who didn't understand how to open a can of soda. Even one with Down's. She reached over to pull the tab, and smiled at the girl's cautious first sip.

The surprised pleasure prompted a laugh from Liz. "You won't forget that in a hurry, will you?"

Aware that the girl's timidity was like that of a feral cat, Liz shifted her chair so she was angled away, facing the opposite wall. She rested her head on the back of the wall, idly picking at the chips, occasionally drooping her eyelids to promote the notion that she was relaxed enough to nod off.

The child wasn't well, that much was clear. Though not malnourished, exactly, she had a sallow tinge to her face that spoke of illness and confinement. Her skin was as sheer as skimmed milk, purple lines threading like a spool under her eyes. Her hair looked like it was cropped with a blunt knife, its length exposing her broad, squat neck. Liz closed her eyes and tucked her fingers close to the radiator, listening to the door jangling and customers stomping the snow off their boots.

After a long while she straightened up, stretching her arms and mewling a satisfied groan as her back cracked. She looked at the plate, happy to see that it had been picked clean.

Liz smiled contentedly. "That was lovely. Much needed."

They looked at each other, feeling safe enough to examine each other's features. Liz lowered her voice.

"May I ask you a question?"

A hesitant nod.

"Can I ask you your name? You know mine well enough, I'm sure, with my boss screaming it from the rafters all day."

She tucked her chin into her neck. "Your name is Liz."

She spoke as though her words were round, her cheeks stuffed with cotton balls.

Liz grinned. "That's right! And what can I call you?"

She tilted her head, her eyes angling awkwardly from under her folded lids.

"I'm Martha."

Liz clasped her hands excitedly in her lap, avoiding any sudden movements.

"Martha. What a lovely name, Martha."

The child's eyes shifted back to the window, almost dismissive.

Liz quirked her lips. "Well Martha, you saved my feet an' all. It's been a pleasure"

There was no point in pushing her too hard. She didn't want to scare her away, skittish as she was. But as she resumed her shift, laughing with customers and weaving around chairs, she could see Martha surreptitiously watching her from the window reflection as the afternoon darkened into dusk, and her heart swelled. It was a step forward, at any rate. Now that she bridged some mutual interest, she could work on establishing trust.

When evening rounded, a team of a dozen regulars barrelled through the front door, and Liz swiftly sorted through the orders and habitual banter. She had just settled the last plate when she looked up and saw Martha staring at her with disconcerting attention. Liz scuttled through the tables towards her, brows raised.

"Everything alright, love?

Her chin was near pasted to her chest, but her solemn eyes, small but prettily framed by sooty lashes, looked down at Liz' feet somewhat… impishly.

"The Magoo's", a shy whisper.

Customers be damned, but Liz collapsed into a dramatic heap on the ground. As she made a dramatic fuss at her world-weary feet, she was rewarded by a high-pitched huffing noise, a strange laugh, that the child immediately hid in the crook of her arm.

o-O-o

Liz was occupied with changing the till roll when Martha disappeared. She hadn't heard the bell atop the door, or the settling of coins she now saw on the table, but rather felt the sudden ebbing of magic. She swung her head to see Beatriz sourly scraping gum from the underside of the counter, oblivious to the girl's departure. It was time.

She went outside, bracing herself against the cold as she scanned the narrow street. She couldn't see the girl, but she could feel the tendrils of her drum-like magic fading past the corner. Liz pushed through a throng of people and jogged down the slush-coated pavement. Though the next street over was well-lit with shop signs and neon lights, she still couldn't see Martha. She closed her eyes and felt the swell of magic, and began to jog again, choosing to trust her senses over her sight.

Lord, but she was freezing. Her service uniform was short-sleeved, and her bare arms bristled with gooseflesh. She hoped Beatriz would remember to meet her at her flat.

The street cornered into a skinny lane, and Liz hurried when she realized that the path led into a sprawling park, bereft of streetlamps. She dodged a party of young lads out for an early-night pint and at the park gate she brushed past two men looking at the street sign. It wasn't until one of them called out to her that she felt the thrums of their magic bristle her senses.

"Marie?"

Liz stopped and turned, staring squarely at the hulking figure who had spoken. He was enormous, tall as he was wide. Barrel-chested with a roustabout build and presently peering at her with some bemusement. Beside him stood the most ridiculous-looking nob she'd ever seen, dressed like a Victorian villain with a cane to boot. He flicked his platinum blonde hair over his shoulder and looked at her with a curled lip, like she was the physical embodiment of a bad smell.

This encounter was important, she was sure. But she didn't want to know any more. She didn't want to know anything new about Marie, not the strange men she knew nor the strange life she led.

Wordlessly she shook her head as a response, and resumed her light jog. Clasping her hands around her arms, she peered into the black brush, trying to shake off her shaken feelings.

This was bad. She didn't know how or why, but she could read an omen as well as anyone. Nothing good ever came from that woman. She wasn't in any hurry to claim a relation. She inhaled, sharply. Yes, this was bad.

Venturing deeper into the darkness, she picked up traces of Martha at the far corner of the gated park. The tall trees blocked out the surrounding streetlamps, and as she stepped off the pavement onto the snowy grass she felt as though she was walking blind.

Martha was hiding. But why?

It was a fair point to assume the child was ducking from the overly-intrusive waitress gunning after her for blocks, but Liz sensed she wouldn't have hidden from her.

The temperature dropped so suddenly it stopped Liz in her tracks. She straightened and looked around. Something seemed to swirl in the black silhouettes of the trees. The tension in the night sky grew taut as a familiar fear began to coil in her belly.

Fear is always familiar, but this fear was embodied with an essence she hadn't felt since she was a child. The trepidation of this known fear had cloaked Liz her entire life, at times smothering her until she wound up on the floor gasping for air.

Snow sifted through the spots of dead grass, and she stood stock-still as petrification swelled around her until all she felt was her heart clanking against her chest. She breathed a strangled noise, and lurched forward as though the sound jumpstarted her into action. She ran towards a copse of wood where she could feel Martha hiding.

"Martha. Martha. You're alright love, I've come to take you home. C'mon love."

She stuck a shaking hand through the brambles, frantically snapping off branches trying to feel for a clearing.

"It's Liz, love. Martha I know you're in there. You need to come out now. You'll be alright with me."

Damn that tremble in her voice! She sounded like a child herself.

She strained to hear for the girl and it was with this focus she suddenly heard the slow staccato step of heel on pavement, accompanied by a recently acquainted thrum of magic. This was too much. It was the man with the cane, and he was headed this way.

Panic engulfed her and she started to hiss Martha's name. "Come out! Come out! Quickly!"

She thought she could see the outline of a small hand, strangely white inside the black thicket. The heat of ignited blood pierced the cold air that felt like a reaper's breath at her neck. They were connected somehow. Martha and these men, an archetypal villain and a leering acquaintance of Marie's. Liz would sooner hand her over to a caravan of carnies than see her found by these strangers.

The coldness hung on her, oppressed. She tore through the brambles like a madwoman, her anxiety edging towards a precipice when all of a sudden she felt Martha's magic dim, then disappear completely. Shocked, she looked ahead, only to see that the small hand was gone.

Then, Liz realized, so was she, seeing herself run past the tree lined fence towards the opposite gate. Released suddenly like a desperate bat on a cord, straight out of hell. Away from the park. Away from those men. Away from Martha.

It was too much. Too much.

She ran for blocks, bursting through the unlocked door beside the closed Chinese grocery, up the narrow stairs and into the tiny bedsit she rented above the store. She stumbled at the entrance and nearly yanked the door off its hinges as her legs gave way from under her, still gripping the doorknob. Sheer maternal instinct overrode her desire to slam the door, and she pushed it closed with a surprisingly gentle shoulder, bolting it with shaking fingers. She fell on her elbows and gasped out loud, a moan grated by seizing lungs. She tried to catch her breath, raspy and grated, her face half-squashed into the carpet.

She felt five years' old all over again. Helpless. Mind and body paralyzed with fear. No control and no autonomy.

Eventually she drew herself onto shaky legs, compelled to the bedroom. She was vaguely aware of Beatriz' presence as the bathroom door was closed and rimmed in light. Liz pushed through the curtain barrier and blinked at the too-bright nightlight Penny had insisted on, before crawling into bed with her baby sister. She propped the warm blankets around her shoulders and wrapped her arms around the child, burrowing her nose in her hair and breathing in the sour scent of sweet milk that unbathed children always seem to reek of.

By focusing on Penny's small chest rising and falling, she could feel some semblance of her begin to even out. She was home. In bed with the headboard coated in cartoon stickers, wrapped in soft light and her favourite little person all tucked away in her arms. If home is a hearth, then the fire was beginning to temper rather than blaze.

Penny.

Liz became a mother at 13. Not in the traditional sense, mind, but a mother nonetheless. Penny was her child in all ways but birth. In Doug's world, half-siblings came and went. But Penny stayed.

She was resentful at first, sure, being the one to do the late-night feedings and nappy-changes while Doug and the birth mother would disappear for days on end. And then especially when the birth mum skipped off altogether. But Penny was a happy baby, and it was hard to hate her. It wasn't uncommon in the council estates to see young girls pushing prams, but still Liz despised the assumptions people would make about her. But once when she was easing the simple cloth pram onto the high step of a public bus, the driver with a northern accent complimented her bonny babe, with a genuine grin that showed no judgement. Liz had beamed at him. Her bonny babe. Hers. For once, the assumption delighted her.

After that, nothing about Penny or the obligation of raising her bothered Liz. Never mind the colic or the sour posset, she loved this infant more than life. Warts an' all. The sharp academic decline didn't bother her. The complete lack of a social life didn't bother her. Successfully wiping out her future career prospects after dropping out of school at 16 didn't bother her. Doug would never deign to parent, so it was up to her. She had tunnel vision when it came to Penny. Penny needed a mother, and no child could be a mother, so Liz gave up all vestiges of childhood to claim that position. They were poor, and would always be poor. But they had each other.

Liz felt the oily infusion of shame seep into her.

"You're hugging too tightly, Lizzie". A sleepy mewl.

"Sorry love."

Penny wriggled her head deeper into the pillow, dropping off again.

Liz could feel her heart begin to wrench.

Penny had Liz. Penny had night-time cuddles and kisses. And another little girl was hiding herself away, in possible danger, in an empty park at night in the middle of winter and Jesus Christ she had _left her there._

She silently flew out of the bed, the realization hissing in her brain as she anxiously grasped her scalp. How could she? _How could she?_

 _She left her alone_.

"That bad, eh?" Beatriz had appeared and was leaning on the jamb, watching her. "What part disturbs you? The parents or the place?"

Liz looked at her, drinking her in, the familiar sight of her friend balancing her again. She walked past Beatriz on shaky legs, towards the kitchen.

"Neither. I think she's living in the park."

Beatriz put a hand to her mouth.

"More disturbing than that, I think she's hiding from someone." She landed heavily on the kitchen chair, dropping her head into her hands.

"Jesus. _Jesus._ How do you know?"

Liz shook her head in irritation, she couldn't explain the magical connection. "There were a couple men at the park, looking 'round. I just got a weird feeling, you know. I can't prove it, or likely explain it, but they were up to no good. One of them was this toff who had no business being round there, and I just had the feeling he was looking for her. He's no relation to her, that's for damn sure."

Beatriz pulled out the other chair. "And anytime a toff's in the neighbourhood, it's usually for one thing."

"I left her there." Liz said quickly, nearly cutting her off. "She disappeared and the men made me so nervous that I just left."

Beatriz laid a hand on her forearm. "It's for the best. I think we ought to hand this one over to the police, yeah?"

She let out a shaky breath. The shame wrapped her up, till she thought she'd choke.

"Yeah, but…" Without any more thought to it Liz stood up and walked to the door.

"I think I need to try one more time. To find her, I mean."

Beatriz let out an astounded scoff. "As bloody _if_."

She shrugged into her winter jacket. "It'll just be a quick look-see, and I'll be right back." She waved away Beatriz' expression. "I promise we'll have the police in, but I just need to see if those men have gone for myself."

"Oh that makes me feel better."

"I'll stay on the street. There's plenty of people round."

"At least let me come with you."

"Betty's off then?" Liz looked around as she opened the door, realizing for the first time that Penny's sitter might still be there.

"Yeah, but she's the next block over. I can bring her back to mind Penny a little longer."

"Don't bother, you can be here to meet the police."

"What, you mean ring 'em now?"

"Yes, ring 'em now. I'll be back in a half-hour and it'll take them an hour to get their arses over here." With that, Liz shut the door and found herself walking into the frigid night.

o-O-o

Behind her, the streets were packed with laughing souls and beeping cabs. In front, a blink of blackness where the park stretched out. The conviction that pushed her out the door had long faded and she was back to panicking. It might've been her imagination, but she thought she could feel the energy at the gates bristling, straining, under some oppressive force.

She had arrived to the park carefully, mindful of those strange men, and slowly circled the perimeter until she reached the gate. The closed gate. The locked gate.

Frustrated beyond belief, and completely ignoring the tiny measure of relief she felt, Liz made another turn around the park to peer through the iron fence, trying to sense Martha's magic.

Nothing.

As it happened, shame trumped fear, and she found herself attempting to climb the fence, made impossible by the arrowed spikes. She'd achieve one rung, but then the next rung would rely on a foothold, and she wasn't ready for impalement quite yet. A group of young men and women, all completely rat-arsed, weaved across the street to watch the entertainment.

"Need a lift, luv?" Slurred the man in front, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip.

Liz wasn't alarmed by him; they were ebullient drunks.

"Ta." She smiled. "That'd be a help."

"C'mon lads, give 'er a hand!" He motioned with dramatic gestures to his chortling entourage. "A damsel in _dee_ -stress is in need of us."

With raucous cheers they stumbled over to her, bending with cupped hands, and tipping with the forward movement. It took a few minutes to coordinate, and during a few mock-groaning's about Liz's weight, she began to think they were going to spill her on the ground. But with a few cheered lifts, she was boosted over the edge and was lightly passed over.

The group cheered at their grand success, and Liz stuck her face at the fence. She smiled in gratitude and motioned to the sozzled leader.

"D'you think you could stay for a little longer? In case I need to get back out? Else I'll have to wait for the park patrol."

He clapped his hands in a show of gratified flattery. "We're at your beck and call, mad' _am._ Settle in for the night, lads! The lady still has need of us!" This jolly command was punctuated by an impressive belch and a hooting rejoinder.

Her neighbourhood had its faults, to be sure, but it still knew how to have grand old time.

Liz sprinted towards the pathway and then to the copse she had abandoned earlier. She couldn't see either of those men from earlier, nor feel their magic. But neither could she feel Martha's. It was scary, being out here in the dark, but it wasn't the same kind of scary. It didn't feel like a presence breathing at her neck. There was no weight on her shoulders. Just an empty park on a dark night.

Had Martha managed to get out? Did she run out the other gate? Or was she picked up by the strange man?

She tugged her hair sharply at that thought, the pain reminding her not to dwell. Deal, never dwell, Liz always told herself. She walked past the brush, her fingers trailing the brambles, trying to feel a kindle of magic. The night felt friendlier now, strangely.

A rustle of wind picked up some litter and skittered it along the snow. She looked around, adjusting to the darkness. Her stomach clamped. Was this it? Had she buggered it all up by chasing this child down? Had she made things worse?

"Martha." She spoke loudly, firmly. "Martha, if you're here, it's time to come out."

She stepped further into the field, looking all around. "You'll be safe with me, Martha. But I need to see you. You need to come out now."

A motion caught her eye. At the opposite end from her, in another copse of tall trees, hung an alcove completely shrouded in darkness from a canopy of dead branches. Liz caught her breath, staring at the empty space.

The inky black shadows seemed to move, to slip like untethered vines, uncurling.

Her heart clamped, then quickened. Was this the same presence, back again?

The blackness swirled, lazy, sifting the snow into grainy tendrils. Liz watched it stir, as scared as she'd ever been. Regardless, she took a step forward. And then another.

"Martha." The name came out in three syllables, so shaky was her voice. "Come. Out. Now."

She proceeded, forcing her limbs to move, watching the ethereal movement of black space as carefully as a mouse would a cat. She was so intent on watching the silken slide of shaded movements, that it was only when a flash of white flickered in her vision, that her eyes flickered.

A little girl, stark white in the unlit park, was running towards her, arms outstretched towards Liz. Martha. Her face was contorted in fear, her fingers flexed in taut tension, her magic bursting like bubbles popping, reappearing.

She flew to Liz, and Liz caught her up in her arms, and without a moment's hesitation turned and fled for the second time that night.

o-O-o

Zedra Zywiec sat at the kitchen table, reeking of viceroy cigarettes and cheap perfume. The jaundiced nametag indicating her social worker status contrasted sharply against her gaudy clothing; a green leather skirt and blazer with shoulder pads that looked apt to poke an eye out.

She had appeared at the bedsit unannounced, cradling stacks of folders and shooing away all the guests in the flat, all of whom were struck speechless at the frizzy beehive hairdo teetering atop her head. A friend of Liz' was kind enough to look after Penny when Ms. Zywiec insisted on a private conversation. Liz had stifled a laugh at the look of indignation on Penny's face when told, "that's right pet, be a doll and leave mummy and me be," and then unceremoniously ushered out the door.

Thinking she had come to discuss Martha, Liz was lulled into something of a stupor as Ms. Zywiec instead pulled out a stick, sorry, a wand, displayed some magical feats and spent the next hour discussing magic and magical history.

Mind-blowing was something of an understatement.

Eventually Ms. Zywiec ran out of steam, crossed her legs and stared expectantly at the younger woman, who was clearly trying to pick up her tongue from the bottom of her mouth.

The motor of the fridge grumbled, and eventually Liz gathered her wits.

"So, you're a - a wizard, then?"

A needle-like laugh. "Witch. Witch luv. I wouldn'a go around calling witches wizards if I were you, 'less they preferred it if you know what I mean. Mind if I smoke?" She said this with half a lip, already lighting up, the flash flaring the rosacea peeking through powdery skin.

Liz shook her head dumbly.

"All along you never knew what you were, eh? I'd be surprised, but you know, I've seen it time and time again. The Ministry can gab all they like about how precious all wizards and witches are, whatever the blood status, and keep better tabs on us than the KGB. But _god_ forbid one of us spawns a squib. They make for the hills faster than me first boyfriend when he put me up the duff." She shook her head and tutted with regret.

Liz dropped her chin to her propped wrist. "I suppose I've always known about magic, but never the how's or the why's. It is bit of a relief to have it all explained to me. It all makes sense, strangely, as queer as it all seems."

"Your mother never gave you this speech, then? Nah? Merlin sake's. How inconsiderate. Mind, my mum was hardly a helpful Hattie neither. She had me dad do all the raising. Poor blighter was the one who had to explain to us the birds n' the bees. Awkward all round, lemme tell you. Wasn't a stretch to see who wore the pants in our family."

She laughed wearily. "I guess Marie didn't think it necessary."

"Nah, she wouldn't, would she. You'se being a squib and all. Still, a squib ought to know their heritage. You'll never work a wand, but you ain't exactly muggle neither. It'd be hard to explain at eighty why you still look forty, for one."

She pulled a long drag from her cigarette, nearly crisping the whole stem in one breath. "Perhaps she was trying to spare you. They'd never accept you in the wizarding world. You'd be a leper." She stubbed out the expunged filter on a napkin, proceeding to light up another one. "I went to school with your mum you know. Well, she was a few levels below me. Had _quite_ the reputation, if you know what I mean."

The discussion of Marie immediately squelched any desire Liz had to further her knowledge on witches and wizards. Another time, perhaps.

"To be honest, I'm a bit surprised by your visit. I thought you might be here about Martha, Ms. Zywiec."

She floated her hand in a vague gesture. "Oh, in a way, in a way. And Zedra, please."

Liz was utterly confused. "Not that I don't appreciate you're coming over here to explain all of this to me, but, well, is she alright? Is she – "

"Oh the child is fine. Healthy and hardy. No sign of her parents though. No one reported her missing. What a sin." She tutted again. "We're still seeking an appropriate placement for her, but she's comfortable for the time being. We've situated her in a group home, which sounds more frightful than it actually is. We have a number of round the clock caregivers looking after the children, so she's not in want of support or activities."

"Right. Right." Liz nodded, as though she and this woman were somehow equals in this conversation. The tension in her body slipped away; she had been on edge for weeks concerned about Martha's condition.

"It was the police report that put my eye on you. All this, 'I sensed she went this way, and I sensed she went that way', and they went ahead and included the bit where you were mumbling to yourself about it being all demented. I assume they misheard Dementors, luv. You're lucky you passed as normal."

Liz groaned in her hand, smiling sheepishly at Zedra. "I was completely barmy that night. I didn't know Dementors were a _thing_ , just, well, a scary feeling really. Marie once referred to them by that name years ago, and I figured it was just something related to her magic. It was terrifying, though. I felt at death's door."

Zedra pointed a stern finger at her. "And you likely were. Dementors aren't to be toyed with. They'll consume your soul given the chance. Like I said, happy thoughts are part of the cure. They say. _I_ say it's easier to fly to Neverland on happy thoughts than it is to grin down those repellent buggers."

She leaned back, looking disturbed. Drumming her fingers on the table, she took another drag, staring into space.

"They were looking for the child, no doubt. But on whose behalf? The Ministry's? I'll say this, Ms. Milne, I have never, _never_ heard of a witch or wizard who was developmentally impaired. Never. This will chuck the wizarding world off their arses, that's for sure." She laughed dryly, without conviction. "I can see why the Ministry would _want_ to keep her a secret. Those toffee-nosed Purebloods would have a fit, for a start. Blood-status was the front for the first Wizarding war, as I said. It's a load of bollocks, though. It's always about power. Who gets it and who doesn't. Oh yes. The Ministry would do well to keep her a secret. She's sweet as pie, but she's trouble. Oh yes."

Onto the third cigarette. "But still. Arresting a child? Ooh, it boils me blood just to consider it. Fudge is an idiot, but it takes a soulless man to subject a little girl into Azkaban."

Liz was at a loss, the description of this world too new and beguiling for her to grasp the politics at play.

"Who – who else could control a Dementor?"

Zedra's lips compressed into a tight line. "There's a question and a half. Who indeed. Nobody good. I think I might recognize one of the men you described in the report, and if I'm right and he has something to do with it, well, it doesn't bode well for any of us." She looked squarely at Liz. "He's powerful."

Liz felt chilled through. "Who is he?"

Zedra smiled condescendingly at her, for once looking at Liz as the young woman she was.

"Let me worry about him, luv. The less you know, the safer you'll be." Before Liz could investigate how safety factored into the situation, Zedra clapped the table. "Now, I've been fretting for weeks what to do about this little girl. You'll be wondering why I'm a witch, working for muggles, am I right?"

She raised her brow. "I am now."

"Well. Let me enlighten." She coughed in preparedness. "I left the Wizarding world after the first war. Dozens of us left in droves; some by force, others in solidarity. There are boatloads of reasons why I left, but I suppose the brunt of it can be boiled down into two camps: solidarity for all the non-Purebloods that are oppressed by a minority power, and my personal belief that the Ministry of Magic is a bloated pig overblown with a farcical sense of entitlement."

Liz blinked at the rising passion in the woman's voice.

"Oh yes, oh yes. Bunch of self-authorised layabouts, if you know what I mean." Zedra raised a fist, beaming. "I'm what you would call an Activist."

"Well, I think that's admirable."

"As do I! I'm sort of a libertarian, you see. I don't believe the Ministry has any business interferin' and pokin' round at our god-given right to use magic at our own bleedin' discretion and… well. There I go off again." She waved her hand at her flushed face. "I ain't here to talk politics. I came here today, Ms. Milne, Liz if I may, to discuss the po _tentiality_ for a partnership, if you know what I mean."

Partnership? _Partnership_? Liz straightened in her seat. In what universe could such an unlikely pair partner up for anything?

"I, I really don't know what you mean, Ms. Zywiec. Zedra, sorry."

"Being a wizard doesn't make one a good parent, Liz. As you know. There are plenty of children with magical abilities floating around in care and in between foster homes, because the Ministry of Magic doesn't give a good god damn about them until they're ripe for Hogwarts. Not to mention the squibs!" Zedra's cheek began to flush again.

"Ooh, there's some nasty people, Liz, who'll desert their child in the scary Muggle world if they ain't showing magic. All these children, exiled to a world where they don't belong. There are children who go through the totality of their critical development without love and without proper nurture, and somehow the Ministry expects them all to grow up to be upstanding witches and wizards. Not a bad egg in sight." She snorts. "Why, last month I had one case where a child was smacked by a foster parent for an uncontrolled instance of magic-use."

This time they tutted together, vexed.

"I became a social worker to find these children, Liz. There's another witch workin' above me, and she assigns me the cases where she thinks magic might be involved. It's my job to find them adequate care with foster parents who are, _understanding_ , about odd occurrences, if you know what I mean."

Liz put a hand to her mouth, feeling tremendously compassionate towards this bizarre character. "That's incredible, Zelda. Truly. They are so lucky to have you."

Zedra waved impatiently at her. "Yes yes. Ooh, look at the time. It's always a day and half teaching a grown squib the p's and q's of where they're from. Let me get to it. I've been evaluating you Liz. On the sly. I think you could assist us in our cause."

"How, how?" She was in earnest. Zedra's ranting, as scattered as it was, impassioned her.

"By becoming a foster parent. I know I know; it sounds like I'm sellin' you on it. But really, on the face of it, you're one of our worst candidates."

Liz wasn't sure if she felt gobsmacked or offended.

"You're an excellent surrogate to that one, I'll grant you." Zedra stuck a thumb at the door, as though to indicate Penny's corporeal presence. "But your living conditions are horrid, and your career is menial at best."

Yep, offended was the word for what she was feeling.

"But if we can upgrade you from this hovel, even put you in the council tower block, and find a way to increase your income, we'll make a fine candidate out of you."

Liz inhaled, and released a long breath. "Zedra, I don't even know where to begin."

Zedra leaned forward and unexpectedly placed a hand on hers. "What I'm asking, Liz, is for you to continue being a mother. You're ace at it. Truly. I'm just hoping you'll find it in you to open your heart a little more for all the youngsters who are stuck in a world they don't belong in. They are only safe if they are connected to the magical world, as much as I resent that life. Putting them in the care of magical people, or squibs, will make for a less traumatizing transition. They will be safer with those who understand them."

She felt disconnected, drifting in another world where she was involving herself and her sister into the lives of other children. Possibly disturbed children.

"I've been looking for candidates to take on these children for a while now. It's no easy task, to be sure. It's dirty work, and it's hard enough to find muggles to take 'em in, much less magical folk. Oh yes. The work is hard, but it's rewarding. You'll be better off financially, Liz. You get a stipend for every child you take in, and I can likely wrangle you a job in our admin department. It ain't fancy, but it pays better than that-"

"Martha." Liz interrupted. "Could I have her?"

For seemingly the first time, Zedra paused, before giving her a genuinely glad smile.

An hour later, as Penny walked into the flat wheezing through the haze of cigarette smoke, Liz sat stock still and just watched her little sister move about – crossly climbing onto the counter to wrench open a window. Penny huffed about Zedra's attitude, booting her out like that, as she poured herself some juice. Cup in hand, she walked around the kitchen, gossiping like an old woman about the going's-on at their friend's flat, totally disinterested in whatever meeting Liz was wearily subjected to.

Liz gazed at her, laughing at her conversation, falling more and more in love with this little creature she was responsible for, wondering if she should upend their lives completely. If she had that right.


End file.
